Klout

Sad news for those who like free stuff – Klout Perks, the swag offered by social media scoring platform Klout, has quietly shut down. Lithium Technologies, the company that bought Klout more than a year ago, confirmed it ended the Perks program in a statement to TechCrunch today.
“Klout’s real strengths lie in its algorithm and wealth of social data,” wrote… Read More

If you’re wondering what Lithium Technologies is going to do with Klout, the social influence measurement startup that it acquired earlier this year, the company is giving its first real hints today at its LiNC user conference in San Francisco.
I spoke to Chief Product Officer Tapan Bhat in advance of today’s announcements. Lithium helps businesses build online communities for… Read More

In honor of May Day, let’s think big for a moment. No, no, no. Bigger than that.
Consider all the furious attention paid to economic inequality of late, courtesy of Thomas Piketty and Capital in the 21st Century. He argues that increasing inequality is an inevitable outcome of laissez-faire capitalism, and proposes we fix this with a global wealth tax.
I humbly suggest that… Read More

At a press event today, Lithium Technologies confirmed reports that it has closed the acquisition of Klout.
Re/code first reported on the deal back in February, saying that it was “signed but not closed“, then Fortune reported yesterday that the price was nearly $200 million. Read More

Think your Klout score’s too low? Well, the social influence measurement startup is launching a revamped version of its website today that includes tools for improving your score.
The main addition is a “create” section that shows a stream of content based on the topics that you’re interested in and that the people who follow your social media accounts are interested in. Read More

Well, here’s another reason to care about your Klout score (and, y’know, actually create an account on Klout) — the company, which aims to measure social media influence, is announcing a prominent new integration with Microsoft’s search engine Bing.
About a year ago, Klout took a strategic investment from Microsoft and said it was integrating with Bing, for example… Read More

Latest Crunch Report

Social data provider Gnip has expanded its agreement with Klout, so Gnip customers who already include Klout Scores in their customer service, sales, and engagement products can have access to more data.
For one thing, those customers can now include Klout Topics in addition to Klout Scores. In other words, the end user won’t be limited to seeing a single score reflecting social… Read More

So what does a high Klout score actually get you? The influence-measuring startup already offers prizes through its Klout Perks program, and there are bragging rights (unless your friends think you’re a loser for caring about your Klout score). Now Klout is asking users who are influential on a given topic to answer short, factual questions through the new Klout Experts program. It… Read More

Klout, the service for measuring online influence, is boosting its integration with both Bing and Instagram today.
On the Bing side, the news follows last fall’s announcement of a strategic investment from and partnership with Microsoft. That announcement included the unveiling of a feature in Bing that would show Klout scores for select people. (And Bing continues to surface more data… Read More

Endorsements, a lightweight way for people on LinkedIn to recommend each other’s skills, has picked up some significant traction in its first five months of life. Today, LinkedIn is announcing that Endorsements has passed the 1 billion milestone — with 58 million members getting recognition on their profiles for different areas of expertise, according to a blog post from Peter Rusev. Read More

Like a growing number of students, Ben Kosinski attended multiple universities over the course of his collegiate career. Although these schools differed wildly in culture and the makeup of their student bodies, the one thing that seems to remain true at any school, he says, is the level of influence online social identities have come to play in the daily life of college students. Yet, in spite… Read More

Online social influence is something that can really rub people the wrong way. Klout obviously believes in it wholeheartedly; others, not so much. Now, in a move that’s sure to generate its fair share of criticism, Klout has updated its iPhone app with Passbook support, allowing users to create their own “Klout Card,” which lives in Passbook and can help users “show… Read More

Over the weekend, I wrote a post about Salesforce telling potential job applicants that one of its “desired skills” was having a Klout score of 35 or more. Needless to say, I found this to be a bit unsettling, as I instantly imagined other companies forcing this into their own job applications. Read More

Let’s put it out there right now: I am personally not a fan of Klout, which ranks people based on their Internet interactions and engagement on services like Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. I have nothing against the company whatsoever, and this is a vertical that someone was going to get into sooner or later.
However, I still feel like the whole concept is bunk. Read More

Klout, the site that aims to measure your online influence, has made some big changes to its scoring system, and it has a new look to match the new algorithm.
Founder and CEO Joe Fernandez says that the old Klout score looked at less than 100 “signals”, while the new one looks at more than 400. Put another way, he says the amount of data points that the company analyzes daily… Read More

It’s of note to mention that BlogFrog has developed a platform that would not be possible without women bloggers.
The newly available platform has a network of 100,000 “social influencers.” Women represent 95% of that community. These are women who write about parenting, food, health, fashion and home and garden. Read More

PeerIndex, the Klout-like influencer ranking startup which this year picked up a $3 Million Series A round, is beefing up its team and scaling up operations. Specifically, it’s hired Garth Holsinger, Klout’s ex-VP of Sales and Business Development, to help accelerate their marketing and partnerships. This makes for a significant move, especially since they’ve lured him away… Read More